Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 is the second live album by the American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke. The album was released in June 1985 in the United States by RCA Records. Initially recorded on January 12, 1963 to be released as a live album entitled One Night Stand, the concert at Miami's Harlem Square Club was not released until 1985. RCA Victor, at the time, viewed the album as too gritty and raw and possibly damaging to his pop image, and quietly kept the recordings in their archive.

The album is generally considered among the best live albums by contemporary music critics, and has been ranked in "best-of" music lists, including on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Three mixes of the record exist: the 1985 issue, a version included on the 2000 box set The Man Who Invented Soul, and a 2005 remaster from RCA.

In 1962, RCA Victor decided it was time for Cooke to record a live album, and a warm January night at the Harlem Square Club in Miami was picked to record. The Harlem Square Club was a small downtown nightspot in Miami's historically African-American neighborhood of Overtown, and was packed with the singer's most devoted fans from his days singing gospel. RCA found the results too loud, raw and raucous — not the Cooke the label was trying to break as an international pop star — and shelved the recordings for over two decades.

In 1985, executive Gregg Geller discovered the tapes and quickly issued Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 that year. "Sam was what we've come to call a crossover artist: He crossed over from gospel to pop, which was controversial enough in its day. But once he became a pop artist, he had a certain mainstream image to protect," Geller said in 2013. "The fact is, when he was out on the road, he was playing to a predominantly, almost exclusively black audience. And he was doing a different kind of show — a much more down-home, down-to-earth, gut-bucket kind of show than what he would do for his pop audience."

Three mixes of the album exist. The original 1985 mix contains a louder audience response, creating a "claustrophobic, frenzied power", while the version included on the 2000 box set, The Man Who Invented Soul, turns these elements down, cleaning up Cooke's vocals as well as the music. The 2005 remaster generally splits the difference between these two releases.

In 1962, RCA Victor decided it was time for Cooke to record a live album, and a warm January night at the Harlem Square Club in Miami was picked to record. The Harlem Square Club was a small downtown nightspot in Miami's historically African-American neighborhood of Overtown, and was packed with the singer's most devoted fans from his days singing gospel. RCA found the results too loud, raw and raucous — not the Cooke the label was trying to break as an international pop star — and shelved the recordings for over two decades.

In 1985, executive Gregg Geller discovered the tapes and quickly issued Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 that year. "Sam was what we've come to call a crossover artist: He crossed over from gospel to pop, which was controversial enough in its day. But once he became a pop artist, he had a certain mainstream image to protect," Geller said in 2013.  "The fact is, when he was out on the road, he was playing to a predominantly, almost exclusively black audience. And he was doing a different kind of show — a much more down-home, down-to-earth, gut-bucket kind of show than what he would do for his pop audience."

Three mixes of the album have been released. The original 1985 mix contains a louder audience response, creating a "claustrophobic, frenzied power" and also features some minor instrumental studio overdubbing which was not used in subsequent mixes. The version included on the 2000 box set, The Man Who Invented Soul, turns the audience elements down, cleaning up Cooke's vocals as well as the music. The 2005 remaster generally splits the difference between these two releases. However, the 2005 version has a defect. Around the 0:56 mark of "Twistin' the Night Away", the song skips. It is not known why this defect is present, or why it has not been fixed as of today. Full Article